1.
San Francisco
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San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the cultural, commercial, and financial center of Northern California. It is the birthplace of the United Nations, the California Gold Rush of 1849 brought rapid growth, making it the largest city on the West Coast at the time. San Francisco became a consolidated city-county in 1856, after three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. In World War II, San Francisco was a port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. Politically, the city votes strongly along liberal Democratic Party lines, San Francisco is also the headquarters of five major banking institutions and various other companies such as Levi Strauss & Co. Dolby, Airbnb, Weebly, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Yelp, Pinterest, Twitter, Uber, Lyft, Mozilla, Wikimedia Foundation, as of 2016, San Francisco is ranked high on world liveability rankings. The earliest archaeological evidence of habitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the system gradually ended, and its lands became privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7,1846, during the Mexican–American War, montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco on January 30 of the next year, despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography. The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers, with their sourdough bread in tow, prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. Some of these approximately 500 abandoned ships were used at times as storeships, saloons and hotels, many were left to rot, by 1851 the harbor was extended out into the bay by wharves while buildings were erected on piles among the ships. By 1870 Yerba Buena Cove had been filled to create new land, buried ships are occasionally exposed when foundations are dug for new buildings. California was quickly granted statehood in 1850 and the U. S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate, silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in Nevada in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush
2.
Consumerism
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Consumerism is a social and economic order and ideology that encourages the acquisition of goods and services in ever-increasing amounts. In economics, consumerism may refer to policies which emphasise consumption. In this sense, consumerism expresses the idea not of one man, one voice, but of one dollar, one voice, the term consumerism has several definitions. These definitions may not be related to other and confusingly. One sense of the term relates to efforts to support consumers interests, by the early 1970s it had become the accepted term for the field and began to be used in these ways, Consumerism is the concept that consumers should be informed decision makers in the marketplace. Practices such as product testing make consumers informed, Consumerism is the concept that the marketplace itself is responsible for ensuring social justice through fair economic practices. Consumer protection policies and laws compel manufacturers to make products safe, Consumerism refers to the field of studying, regulating, or interacting with the marketplace. The consumer movement is the movement which refers to all actions. While the above definitions were becoming established, other people using the term consumerism to mean high levels of consumption. This definition has gained popularity since the 1970s and began to be used in ways, Consumerism is the selfish and frivolous collecting of products. In protest against this, some people promote anti-consumerism and advocate simple living, Consumerism is a force from the marketplace which destroys individuality and harms society. It is related to globalization and in protest against this some people promote the anti-globalization movement, vance Packard worked to change the meaning of the term consumerism from a positive word about consumer practices to a negative word meaning excessive materialism and waste. The ads for his 1960 book The Waste Makers prominently featured the word consumerism in a negative way, the consumer society emerged in the late seventeenth century and intensified throughout the eighteenth century. This included sugar, tobacco, tea and coffee, these were grown on vast plantations in the Caribbean as demand steadily rose. In particular, sugar consumption in Britain during the course of the 18th century increased by a factor of 20, critics argue that colonialism was indeed a driver of consumerism, but they would place the emphasis on the supply rather than the demand as the motivating factor. An increasing mass of exotic imports as well as domestic manufactures had to be consumed by the number of people who had been consuming far less than was becoming necessary. That idea was produced later, more or less strategically in order to intensify consumption domestically, marketplaces expanded as shopping centres, such as the New Exchange, opened in 1609 by Robert Cecil in the Strand. Shops started to become important as places for Londoners to meet and socialise, restoration London also saw the growth of luxury buildings as advertisements for social position with speculative architects like Nicholas Barbon and Lionel Cranfield
3.
Thanksgiving (United States)
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Thanksgiving, or Thanksgiving Day, is a public holiday celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States. It originated as a harvest festival, Thanksgiving has been celebrated nationally on and off since 1789, after a proclamation by George Washington. Together with Christmas and the New Year, Thanksgiving is a part of the holiday season. The event that Americans commonly call the First Thanksgiving was celebrated by the Pilgrims after their first harvest in the New World in October 1621 and this feast lasted three days, and—as accounted by attendee Edward Winslow—it was attended by 90 Native Americans and 53 Pilgrims. The New England colonists were accustomed to regularly celebrating thanksgivings—days of prayer thanking God for blessings such as military victory or the end of a drought. Setting aside time to give thanks for blessings, along with holding feasts to celebrate a harvest, are both practices that long predate the European settlement of North America. The first documented thanksgiving services in territory belonging to the United States were conducted by Spaniards. Thanksgiving services were routine in what became the Commonwealth of Virginia as early as 1607, with the first permanent settlement of Jamestown, in 1619,38 English settlers arrived at Berkeley Hundred in Charles City County, Virginia. The groups London Company charter specifically required that the day of our ships arrival at the place assigned, in the land of Virginia shall be yearly and perpetually kept holy as a day of thanksgiving to Almighty God. Americans also trace the Thanksgiving holiday to a 1621 celebration at the Plymouth Plantation, autumn or early winter feasts continued sporadically in later years, first as an impromptu religious observance, and later as a civil tradition. Squanto, a Patuxet Native American who resided with the Wampanoag tribe, taught the Pilgrims how to catch eel and grow corn, squanto had learned the English language during his enslavement in England. The Wampanoag leader Massasoit had given food to the colonists during the first winter when supplies brought from England were insufficient, the Pilgrims celebrated at Plymouth for three days after their first harvest in 1621. Seventeenth-century accounts do not identify this as a thanksgiving observance, rather it followed the harvest and it included 50 persons who were on the Mayflower and 90 Native Americans. The feast was cooked by the four adult Pilgrim women who survived their first winter in the New World, along with young daughters, two colonists gave personal accounts of the 1621 feast in Plymouth. The Pilgrims, most of whom were Separatists, are not to be confused with Puritans, both groups were strict Calvinists, but differed in their views regarding the Church of England. Puritans wished to remain in the Anglican Church and reform it, for as some were thus employed in affairs abroad, others were exercised in fishing, about cod and bass and other fish, of which they took good store, of which every family had their portion. All the summer there was no want, and now began to come in store of fowl, as winter approached, and besides waterfowl there was great store of wild turkeys, of which they took many, besides venison, etc. Besides, they had about a peck a meal a week to a person, or now since harvest, which made many afterwards write so largely of their plenty here to their friends in England, which were not feigned but true reports
4.
Black Friday (shopping)
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Black Friday is the day following Thanksgiving Day in the United States. Since 1952, it has regarded as the beginning of the Christmas shopping season in the U. S. and most major retailers open very early. Similar stories resurface year upon year at this time, portraying hysteria and shortage of stock, in 2014, spending volume on Black Friday fell for the first time since the 2008 recession. $50.9 billion was spent during the 4-day Black Friday weekend, however, the U. S. economy was not in a recession. This usage dates to at least 1961, for many years, it was common for retailers to open at 6,00 a. m. but in the late 2000s many had crept to 5,00 or 4,00. This was taken to a new extreme in 2011, when several retailers opened at midnight for the first time. In 2012, Walmart and several other retailers announced that they would open most of their stores at 8,00 p. m. on Thanksgiving Day, prompting calls for a walkout among some workers. In 2014, stores such as JCPenney, Best Buy, and Radio Shack opened at 5,00 PM on Thanksgiving Day while stores such as Target, Walmart, Belk, and Sears opened at 6,00 PM on Thanksgiving Day. Three states, Rhode Island, Maine, and Massachusetts, prohibit large supermarkets, big box stores, there have been reports of violence occurring between shoppers on Black Friday. Since 2006, there have been 7 reported deaths and 98 injuries throughout the United States and it is common for prospective shoppers to camp out over the Thanksgiving holiday in an effort to secure a place in front of the line and thus a better chance at getting desired items. The news media have described the day after Thanksgiving as the busiest shopping day of the year. In earlier years, this was not actually the case, in the period from 1993 through 2001, for example, Black Friday ranked from fifth to tenth on the list of busiest shopping days, with the last Saturday before Christmas usually taking first place. In 2003, however, Black Friday actually was the busiest shopping day of the year, and it has retained that position every year since, with the exception of 2004, when it ranked second. The SouthPark neighborhood of Charlotte, North Carolina, is the most trafficked area of the United States on Black Friday, Black Friday is a shopping day for a combination of reasons. As the first day after the last major holiday before Christmas, additionally, many employers give their employees the day off as part of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. In order to take advantage of this, virtually all retailers in the country, big and small, recent years have seen retailers extend beyond normal hours in order to maintain an edge, or to simply keep up with the competition. Such hours may include opening as early as 12,00 am or remaining open overnight on Thanksgiving Day, forever 21 went in the opposite direction, opening at normal hours on Friday, and running late sales until 2,00 am Saturday morning. Historically, it was common for Black Friday sales to extend throughout the following weekend, however, this practice has largely disappeared in recent years, perhaps because of an effort by retailers to create a greater sense of urgency
5.
Anti-consumerism
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Anti-consumerism is a sociopolitical ideology that is opposed to consumerism, the continual buying and consuming of material possessions. The criticism of materialism as a dehumanizing behaviour that is destructive of the Earth, as human habitat, comes from religion. From the secular perspective, social activism indicates that from consumerist materialism derive crime, industrial pollution and the consequent environmental degradation, and war as a business. The term consumerism also denotes economic policies associated with Keynesian economics, many anti-corporate activists believe the rise of large-business corporations poses a threat to the legitimate authority of nation states and the public sphere. They feel corporations are invading peoples privacy, manipulating politics and governments, anti-consumerism protesters point out that the main responsibility of a corporation is to answer only to shareholders, giving human rights and other issues almost no consideration. The management does have a responsibility to their shareholders, since any philanthropic activities that do not directly serve the business could be deemed to be a breach of trust. This sort of financial responsibility means that multi-national corporations will pursue strategies to intensify labor, for example, they will attempt to find low wage economies with laws which are conveniently lenient on human rights, the natural environment, trade union organization and so on. It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly, trying to reduce environmental pollution without reducing consumerism is like combating drug trafficking without reducing the drug addiction. It is a term which most people deny, having some more specific excuse or rationalization for consumption other than the idea that they are compelled to consume. A culture that has an amount of consumerism is referred to as a consumer culture. The older term conspicuous consumption described the United States in the 1960s, but was linked to larger debates about media influence, culture jamming. The term and concept of conspicuous consumption originated at the turn of the 20th century in the writing of economist Thorstein Veblen, the term describes an apparently irrational and confounding form of economic behaviour. We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced and discarded at an ever-increasing rate, according to archaeologists, evidence of conspicuous consumption up to several millennia ago has been found, suggesting that such behavior is inherent to humans. Anti-consumerists believe advertising plays a role in human life by informing values and assumptions of the cultural system, deeming what is acceptable. They declare that ads create a world where commodities appear as the key to securing happiness. Anti-consumerists cite studies that find that individuals believe their quality of life improves in relation to values that lie outside the capability of the market place. Therefore, advertising attempts to equate the social with the material by utilizing images and slogans to link commodities with the sources of human happiness. The underlying message is that owning these products will enhance our image, anti-consumerists claim that in a consumerist society, advertisement images disempower and objectify the consumer
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Alternative culture
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Alternative culture is a type of culture that exists outside or on the fringes of mainstream or popular culture, usually under the domain of one or more subcultures. Compare with the politically charged term, counterculture. The concept of culture is rooted in the development of new views of adolescence during the 1950s in Western Europe. The reasons for rejection of traditional social codes and attitudes were usually personal. This disenchantment is in reference to a range of things. The result is an evolution of an externally displayed attitude. The factors that necessitate the creation of a subculture often forge the elements that make it unique, during the point that these subcultures enjoy their peak, they are simultaneously the subject of much negative attention from the media. However, it is this publicity which often drew young people into each subculture, usually. Due to subcultures of this nature being in a constant change and they often develop an old school crowd who tend to resist polluting elements and carry on as before until inevitably evolving themselves. South Africa has a tradition of alternative culture. From the Creole fusion experience of the 17th and 18th centuries, to recent experiments in alternative living
7.
Autonomous building
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Advocates of autonomous building describe advantages that include reduced environmental impacts, increased security, and lower costs of ownership. Some cited advantages satisfy tenets of green building, not independence per se, Off-grid buildings often rely very little on civil services and are therefore safer and more comfortable during civil disaster or military attacks. Most of the research and published articles concerning autonomous building focus on residential homes. These houses can be built now and it is possible to build a house with no bills for the same price as a conventional house, but it would be smaller. In the 1970s, a group of activists and engineers calling themselves the New Alchemists believed the warnings of imminent resource depletion and starvation, the New Alchemists were famous for the depth of research effort placed in their projects. Using conventional construction techniques, they designed a series of bioshelter projects and they published the plans for all of these, with detailed design calculations and blueprints. The Ark used wind based water pumping and electricity, and was self-contained in food production, as of January 2010, the successor organization to the New Alchemists has a web page up as the New Alchemy Institute. The PEI Ark has been abandoned and partially renovated several times, the 1990s saw the development of Earthships, similar in intent to the Ark project, but organized as a for-profit venture, with construction details published in a series of 3 books by Mike Reynolds. The building material is filled with earth. This makes a wall that has large amounts of thermal mass, berms are placed on exposed surfaces to further increase the houses temperature stability. The water system starts with water, processed for drinking, then washing, then plant watering, then toilet flushing. The cisterns are placed and used as thermal masses, Power, including electricity, heat and water heating, is from solar power. One major bank building in the Netherlands was constructed to be autonomous, as an architect or engineer becomes more concerned with the disadvantages of transportation networks, and dependence on distant resources, their designs tend to include more autonomous elements. The historic path to autonomy was a concern for secure sources of heat, power, water, a nearly parallel path toward autonomy has been to start with a concern for environmental impacts, which cause disadvantages. Autonomous buildings can increase security and reduce environmental impacts by using resources that would otherwise be wasted. Autonomy often dramatically reduces the costs and impacts of networks that serve the building, other impacted resources, such as oil reserves and the retention of the local watershed, can often be cheaply conserved by thoughtful designs. Autonomous buildings are usually energy-efficient in operation, and therefore cost-efficient, but they may substitute energy production or other techniques to avoid diminishing returns in extreme conservation. An autonomous structure is not always environmentally friendly, the goal of independence from support systems is associated with, but not identical to, other goals of environmentally responsible green building. First and fundamentally, independence is a matter of degree, living within an autonomous shelter may also require that party to make sacrifices with lifestyle choices, personal behavior, and social expectations to name a few
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